Discounts and complimentary transactions

You may wish to offer selected members discounts towards event registration, membership fees, or other charges. Discounts can be partial or total, resulting in a complimentary – i.e. free – transaction.

A discount – which reduces or eliminates the invoice balance – is distinct from a credit which is added to a contact's account balance then later applied towards the invoice.

The options for providing discounts differs depending on whether the discount is towards event registration, membership fees, or other charges.

Discounts for online event registrations

To create an event coupon code, you create a special event registration type with a reduced base price, and click the Registration code required option under Availability. You can then enter the coupon code yourself or click the Generate code button to create a randomly generated code.

The discount code can be provided to members and other supporters by email or any other method. On the event registration form, they select the special registration type...

...and enter the coupon code.

Discounts for online membership applications

Discounts for online membership applications are provided using membership discount coupons. You can use discount coupons to offer free trials or reduced first-year memberships.

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You cannot use membership discount coupons for free membership levels, or for levels that use automatic recurring payments. Also, membership discount coupons cannot be applied to membership renewals. The only way to discount a membership renewal is to apply a credit to the member's account.

Creating membership discounts

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To create a discount for membership applications, follow these steps:

Hover over the Members menu and select the Discounts option. The Discount coupons screen appears.

Click the Add coupon button.

Specify the amount of the discount by entering a percentage or a dollar amount. You cannot enter a negative amount or a percentage in excess of 100.

The code must be unique among the membership discount coupons, and is not case sensitive.

If you want, you can restrict the coupon to a certain number of uses, to a certain time period, or to selected membership level(s).

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You cannot restrict the number of uses if you set the discount to 100% because invoices are not generated – and the number of uses are not counted – when the fee is reduced to zero.

Once you are finishing setting up the coupon, click the Save button.

Using membership discounts

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When a visitor to your site applies for a membership level that has a discount code associated with it, a Discount code field will appear on the detailed application form where the applicant can enter the discount code.

After entering the code, the discount will be applied to the membership fee, and a confirmation message will appear.

Tracking membership discount use

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On the Discount coupons screen, the Used column indicates how many times each discount coupon was used.

Coupons with a 100% discount are not tracked because invoices are not generated when the fee is reduced to zero.

Discount coupons vs. pro-rating

You can use discount coupons instead of pro-rating new membership fees if you want to reduce a specific amount each month. For example, if someone joins in June, they get $10 off, $20 off in July, $30 off in August, etc., you can create separate discount coupons only active for that specific month. Pro-rating would not work in this case since it is automatically calculated.

Entering discounts manually

To provide a discount for other charges, or to enter a discount for event registration and membership fees manually, you can edit the invoice and add an item for the discount with a negative amount.

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This will update the invoice and contact balances. However, the original transaction will not be changed. and there will be a discrepancy between the transaction amount and invoice amount.

For complimentary transactions – those with no cost at all – you can delete the invoice altogether. However, this will result in a transaction without a corresponding invoice. Transactions without invoices will not be included into your income reports.

Instead of providing a discount, you can provide a credit towards the full cost of the invoice.